When Harry was little, he used to think that the sun was a lemon.
It made sense back then, the idea that some other boy threw it up into the air and left it there like it was the part of his lunch that he was too full to finish. In the backseat of his mum’s car, Harry watched the sun as it followed them down the open highway, watchful.
It was the middle of summer, and the air in the car was sticky with heat. Harry’s clothes stuck to him like a second skin, but the sky was blue like water that day, clouds white like ice cubes.
Harry remembers wanting to go up there and swim.
The sun sat in the sky like a lemon slice in a glass of ice water, its citrus light spreading out over the horizon, orange and yellow and lovely. At eight years old, Harry imagined poking a hole in the sun with a straw and just drinking it up, letting the light run down his chin and fingers like lemon juice.
When he told his mum that, she just smiled and shook her head.
“Harry, darling, the sun would burn you if you got that close.” She laughed, and her voice was warm and full of love like it always was. Harry frowned, sinking back in his seat. How could the sun ever burn him? That didn’t make sense. After a moment, his mum glanced at him in the rear view mirror, laughing when she noticed the look on his face. “Alright. How about we get you some milk from the moon? Would you like that?”
Slowly, Harry’s sulk turned into a smile. “Yes, please.”
Milk from the moon ended up being vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, which Harry got and licked up and loved. But later on that night, when the moonlight was washing into his bedroom and lighting up the dinosaur stickers on the wall, he still couldn’t quite understand how the sun could ever burn him.
It’s sort of funny now though, seeing how right his mum had been.
It’s sort of funny, except well, it really isn’t funny at all.
